Aformer newspaper editor and television producer for the BBC and PBS, Onyekachi Wambu is currently the Director, Special Projects at AFFORD, a charity that seeks to enhance the contributions that Africans in the diaspora make to Africa’s development.  As the former Executive Director, AFFORD’s advocacy work under his leadership, contributed to UK and international recognition of the role of the diaspora in African and international development, and in the subsequent initiation of new policies, programmes, funds, and schemes by global institutions such as The African Union, The European Union, FCDO, The World Bank, IOM, Comic Relief, GIZ, and SDC.

Since 1990 Onyekachi has taken a leadership role on issues of African cultural heritage, especially focusing on the impact of slavery and colonialism, advocating on these issues in the UK and Internationally. This includes supporting the late Member of Parliament, Bernie Grant, Chair of the African Reparations Movement (ARM) on African and cultural issues; founding African Remembrance Day in 1995, to commemorate the victims of slavery; and working with key institutions such as Museum of London, Docklands, and Manchester Metropolitan University. He has made high level presentations and recommendations on African heritage issues, remembrance and reparations to the United Nations and African Union, in the context of the Decade of People of African Descent. He currently coordinates AFFORD’s Return of the Icons Programme for the restitution of ancestral remains and looted African artefacts in Western museums and cultural institutions.

Onyekachi was educated at the University of Essex and completed his M.Phil in International Relations at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He has written widely on Africa and her global diaspora. His publications include: Empire Windrush: 50 years of writing about black Britain (ed); Under the Tree of Talking: Leadership for Change in Africa (ed) and Empire Windrush: Reflections on 75 Years & More of the Black British Experience (ed).